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Share this post: This post is sponsored by Wild Calling!® and the BlogPaws Professional Pet Blogger Network. We are being compensated for helping spread the word about The Art of Nutrition, but Cascadian Nomads only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. Wild Calling! is not responsible for the content of this article. Typist: Bethany Experience has made me an expert on several subjects. I started working with children when I was still a kid myself and I went on to studied child development, child psychology and teaching. Eventually I transitioned into teaching fitness to kids as well as adults and now I have been in the fitness industry for thirteen years. My entire life has been spent with multiple pets and I have traveled to 47 states and nine provinces with at least two dogs. I consider myself quite knowledgeable about child development, fitness, pets and pet travel. Experience has also taught me there are subjects that no matter how many articles I read or questions I ask, are best left to the experts. Pet nutrition is one such subject. I can barely keep up with what is best to feed myself let alone what is most healthy for the pets. I am informed enough to know that feeding high quality food makes a massive difference regarding the long term health of my pets. For the dogs and cat, I know that high quality protein is important. Since I take care to eat all natural, made in the USA food, I think the pets should too. Beyond those few key points, I am always up for learning about pet nutrition but I still find the details best left to the professionals. Being highly knowledgeable about what vitamins, minerals and other food pets need for health and longevity is truly a fine art. Late last year, two of my favorite local, natural pet supply stores introduced me to Wild Calling!® dog and cat food. Seeing as how I am far from a pet nutrition expert, I put a lot of trust in these local stores to carry brands that are truly a cut above the rest. Recently I have had the opportunity to learn more about Wild Calling! and am I happy to report that my trust in the quality of brands my stores sell is not misplaced. Wild Calling! offers what matters most to my non-pet-nutrition-expert mind like grain free foods with high quality hormone and antibiotic-free meat, poultry and fish. Wild Calling! proves their expertise in pet nutrition with the inclusion of GlycoEdge, which is made from tapioca, sweet potatoes, and lentils, providing a low glycemic diet. I didn't know the dogs and cat needed a low glycemic diet but it makes sense that it would provide them with consistent energy just like in humans. I love learning about pet nutrition but I don't think I will ever gain the experience needed to know everything about what foods I can trust to continue making my pets happy and healthy for many years to come. My expertise is in keeping my pets active and taking them along on fabulous adventures. I will leave the pet food formulations and nutritional needs studies to the experts. When there are brands like Wild Calling!, that care about honest quality, it is easy to leave The Art of Nutrition to them. The pets and I will stick to painting the continent with our amazing travels and I'll keep feeding them the best food I can find to ensure they continue to enjoy every second of the fun. What's your experienced expertise? Is there anything you can't get enough of learning about? Do you leave certain things to the experts? Share this post: Welcome To Responsible Pet Owners Month, Now Take Responsibility | Positive Pet Training Blog Hop2/2/2015 Typist: Bethany In all honesty, I sometimes get mad at my pets. I'm not perfect. I am not a perfect companion to my pets, a perfect pet trainer or a perfect person. My pets aren't perfect either. However, when the dogs, cat or cockatoo exhibit a behavior that annoys me or makes me angry, I know that I am always responsible for my pets behavior. Anything undesirable that the pets do is, in fact, my fault. As their trainer, it is my responsibility to teach them how to behave in a way that fits in society and our lifestyle. I should also train away behaviors the pets have that make me mad. So when I get mad at them, I am actually mad at myself. Such is the life of a truly responsible pet owner. I see my responsibility as a positive pet trainer to take the negative, like a behavior I don't like, and turn it into a constructive bonding experience for the pets and I. This is the wonder of positive reinforcement training.
Training away a bad habit with positive reinforcement can actually be that simple. Fixing a negative behavior is just a matter of knowing how to train it away using a positive reinforcement method that will work for both trainer and pet. Resources abound: books, DVD's, classes and, of course, the internet. There isn't a single negative pet behavior I can think of that I can't also name at least three different ways of solving the problem. Sometimes it takes trial and error to find the positive reinforcement training method that works for each pet or each behavior. Beginning with accepting responsibility and trying something is always better than living with frustration. Best of all, there is no better feeling than being responsible for wonderfully behaved pets. I learned a fabulous positive pet training lesson with Wilhelm and his all important, yet often ignored by him, recall. My skirting responsibility excuse list of why Wilhelm had a terrible recall was very long. When I finally accepted that a dachshund ignoring a recall is not exclusively because he of his instincts as a hound or that he is just stubborn, I started to actively work on solving the problem. With surprising haste, Wilhelm's recall improved. I firmly believe that a huge element in enhancing recall training with Wilhelm was simply that in taking responsibility for my dogs bad habit, I became notciably confident in doing better at training more desirable skills. I am in charge of whether Wilhelm or any of my pets, fail or succeed. Me and me alone. If what I do with any of my pets doesn't work, it's my fault and I have to fix it. This is my responsibility to my pets and in the end, to myself. If I consistently accept responsibility for the bad pet behaviors as well as the good, maybe I can get closer to being perfect after all. What good and bad pet behaviors are you responsible for? Share this post: |
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